Battling My Demons
by lovaticNZ
Summary: The story of Demi Lovato aged sixteen, focusing on the personal struggles she faced. Based on knowledge of Demi's issues and my own personal experiences. Warning: May be triggering.


She hadn't eaten anything yesterday. Why should one piece of French toast this morning make her gain weight, especially if she promises not to eat anything else today? She argues with herself, pacing back and forth in the bathroom. This all feels ridiculous; these thoughts consume her mind far too often now. She is Demi freaking Lovato. She shouldn't need to worry about what she looked like. Why bother? She already had millions of fans, she already had made millions of dollars. Looking in the mirror didn't give her that feeling though. She lifted her black band shirt and flicked her bangs out of her eyes. All she could see was the way her stomach stuck out, the way her thighs touched. "Curves are sexy!" her mom would say. What if she didn't _want_ to be curvy though? What if she wanted to be like the other young girls walking the red carpet? She bets Selena and Miley don't get the kind of messages she does on twitter. She grabs her iPhone off the closed toilet lid and sits down, opening the app. Opening her mentions, she only had to look down to the fourth most recent tweet.

" ddlovato is kind of fat lol #justsaying"

She feels the familiar nagging feeling these messages always give her. The words of these strangers ring in her mind, and why would they bother to write that if it wasn't true? Double checking the bathroom door is locked and grabbing her toothbrush from by the sink, she kneels in front of the toilet bowl and opens the lid. It's not the first time, and it certainly won't be the last.

It had been a hectic day on set filming. Purging after breakfast had given Demi a sore throat for most of the morning, and on their lunch break she had sat and watched Tiffany eat a salad. Part of her had wished she could eat something, but mostly she just hated herself for even thinking about food, as though the mere images in her head could make her gain a few pounds. Acting on Sonny With A Chance was a dream come true and she loved it and the people she worked with, but it tended to make her tired and when she got tired she was more likely to succumb to the emotion and take it out on herself. It was a relief when the director called "It's a wrap!" but by the time the car service dropped her home it was late and everyone was in bed, apart from her mother who kissed her goodnight then went upstairs to get some sleep.

After a shower during which she had spent the majority of time letting the water just run over her body and wishing her stomach wasn't quite so _there _Demi shut her bedroom door and stood in front of the mirror. She had on a pair of black Topshop pyjama pants with a red kiss pattern all over them, a black singlet, and still-damp hair that was thrown up on top of her head in a messy bun. Not in the way that most girls can quickly throw their hair up and still look good, but just in a way that took the hair from out of her eyes. She looked at her face and was immediately disappointed as she always was with the way her face looked without makeup. Without mascara and eyeliner, without the foundation, she was nothing. She wouldn't have a career if her fans saw her like this. If they could _really _see what she looked like, would they still "love" her? Probably not she thought sadly before flopping down onto the bed. She reached over to the bedside table and opened the drawer. Pushing aside the journals filled with lyrics of songs she would never release, she pulled from underneath them a small black box which contained her biggest secret in the world. Her blades. She took them from the box and laid them out in front of her, as though deciding on the weapon she should use. She sat cross legged staring at the assortment before her and wondering whether she should do it or not. One small cut? She could stop herself. This was a lie though and she knew it. She put away the blades... all but one.

She held the corner of the blade against the skin of her wrist and closed her eyes. She didn't push down. Not yet. This moment of indecision was one of her favourite things about this. Would she do it or not? Was she strong or was she weak? Was she worth recovery or should she give in to the blade at her wrist, begging her to cut? The answer was always the same. The tingle in her wrists as the razorblade cut through her skin for the first time caused a sharp intake of breath before the sigh of relief came. She had never quite understood what it was about that feeling that made her feel better, but as she lifted the blade away to see the beads of blood forming across the top of her wrist like a bracelet she felt the familiar dizzy relief and numb satisfaction it always brought her. It had only hurt the first few times, when she was younger. As an 11 year old the pain was unbearable but she kept going back anyway. Five years later and it's a good kind of pain, the kind she feels she deserves for looking the way she does, for being the way she is. Never thin enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never _enough_. It had been a long battle with this addiction, and once you've been doing it for a while the pain doesn't even register. You start and you lose yourself in the cutting, the placement of the cuts and the pressure with which you push down becoming the only things in the world that matter until you come out of the dreamlike state and are left with the damage you've done. Sometimes you cry, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's for a particular reason, punishment for a particular flaw she could see (and there were many). Sometimes it was just because she felt like it. When she finally stopped she realized what she'd done. "Demetria you fucking idiot." She whispered to herself. She tried not to cut on her wrists too much for the fear that with being on camera all the time someone would see. The wardrobe crew wouldn't always let her wear bracelets when she was on set, not if that's not how Sonny was supposed to look that day. What she had done tonight was worse than she had anticipated. She had only wanted to make one small cut. Two, if she really needed it. The cuts had been made however and there was nothing she could do but try her best to wipe the blood and bandage the damage. The tears now started to fill her eyes and in a final fit of rage she slashed the razor across her right thigh. Ouch. That one hurt; the skin there wasn't as used to the sting of the blade as her wrists were. It wasn't bleeding very much, but she wanted to sleep and didn't want any blood going on the sheets so taped an extra bandage over the cut. Picking up her phone from the bedside table she selected her favourite song to fall asleep to after a night like this. As the first lyrics started to sing about needing makeup to cover it up and crying yourself to sleep, she closed her eyes and thought of how much she could relate, before the last tear of the night slid down her cheek onto the pillow and she drifted off to sleep.

The next morning she woke up and peeled off the bandage over her wrist to assess the damage. Not too bad considering. A cuff bracelet would cover it up. She pulled on a clean shirt and a skirt with tights underneath. The cut she had made on her right thigh last night wasn't too long or obvious, but she couldn't risk it being seen if her skirt came up. Plus, who wants to see her legs anyway? Eddie was out taking Madison to school, she knew before she opened her bedroom door to go downstairs because Maddie had called out to her before she left. She ran down the stairs and jumped the last two steps, reaching up in an attempt to high-five the ceiling before hitting the ground. She missed. At sixteen she's shorter than she should be. She doesn't know whether this is because she doesn't eat all that much and so she's lacking the nutrients she needs to grow or if it's just genetics. Dallas is taller but then again she's also thinner and much prettier, like all the good genes went her way and Demi was stuck with the worst of the ones from her mother and good-for-nothing father. She pushed that thought away. She didn't even like to think about him anymore, he had never been a father to her. Eddie was her dad and she loved him for being there for her family. Her thoughts were scattered this morning as they often were when it was a bad day. There were a lot of bad days recently. She thought again of Dallas and her perfect figure and wondered why she didn't look more like her sister. And it would be so much easier to hate Dallas for her appearance if she wasn't so damn _nice_ all the time. Demi leaned her elbows down against the cool kitchen bench and stared at the fruit bowl for a while. A pang of hunger struck as she did. How long had it been now since she last ate? She couldn't remember; it all blurred together these days. She picked up an apple, a war raging in her mind as she did, debating the effect an intake of sugar no matter if it was natural or not would have on her body. At that moment Dallas swanned into the room dressed ready to go out someplace. She was always going out to meet so many different people that Demi had given up asking. She wore a low cut singlet with a thick navy blue cardigan over top, a red beanie and tight, dark jeans that showed off the gap between her thighs. Demi sighed and placed the apple back in the bowl. Mistaking this for a sign of disapproval Dallas turned back to face her.

"What, is the beanie too much? It's just they always look so cute on you that I thought I'd try it out."

Demi hated this. Why did she have to compliment her when she _knew_ she looked so much better? She loved her sister, but the envy for the way she looked sometimes took over and made her say things she'd regret. "Yeah well don't" Demi snapped and turned to walk upstairs without looking back. She had to go get ready. It was one of her rare days off from filming and recording so she'd managed to co-ordinate her schedule with Selena's and so they were spending the day together. If she didn't leave the house soon her mother would wake up and ask if she'd eaten breakfast. She would say she did of course, but she didn't like lying to her mom. She grabbed the bag she had already shoved together the night before and headed for Selena's.


End file.
